Harrisburg educational transition team includes members involved in lawsuits against the school district

As the education transition team created by Harrisburg Mayor-elect Linda Thompson prepares its final recommendations for Harrisburg’s schools, some city residents are raising concerns about the team’s makeup.

View full sizeDan Gleiter, The Patriot-News/fileHarrisburg School District Superintendent Gerald Kohn

They’re especially concerned about members of the 19-person panel who might have axes to grind with the school district, Superintendent Gerald Kohn or Mayor Stephen R. Reed.

Several members of the transition team have been involved in lawsuits against the Harrisburg School District.

Former assistant principal Eric Waters sued the school district’s Board of Control and Kohn after being fired in October for alleged inappropriate conduct. Attorney Corky Goldstein, a transition team member, is representing Waters. Transition team member Gloria Martin-Roberts is listed as a co-plaintiff in Waters’ suit. Martin-Roberts, who sits on Harrisburg City Council, once served on the Board of Control before being removed by Reed.

Eric Waters’ father, school district Solicitor Nathan Waters, also is on the transition team. Nathan Waters said the lawsuit by his son is “not going to have any effect on my duties as solicitor and as a team member.”

Goldstein and Martin-Roberts did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Transition team member Marion Echols-Clark was the Harrisburg school board president in 1995 when the school board named H. Major Poteat as superintendent. It was during Poteat’s rocky tenure that Reed first threatened to take over the schools.

“Would we be willing and capable of taking it over to set it on the right course? Absolutely, if need be, that’s what we’ll do,” Reed said in October 1997. A few weeks later, the school board acknowledged its mistake and fired Poteat at a cost of $326,000.

Attorney Royce Morris, another transition team member, represented the school board in 2000 when it sued Reed, in an effort to stop Reed’s takeover of the district.

Transition team member Diane Bowen-Lipscomb was rated unsatisfactory at least twice as principal of the district’s Scott School and was subsequently demoted, according to district records. Bowen-Lipscomb did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Transition team member Rae Talley is another former district principal who later became principal of the Ronald H. Brown Charter School in Harrisburg. In 2006, the Board of Control voted to cut off money to the Ronald Brown school after its charter was revoked. “We took her school away,” said Board of Control member Clare Jones.

Talley declined to comment, referring a reporter of The Patriot-News to Audrey Utley, the education transition team leader. Utley was out of the country.

Transition team member Attorney Harry Witte said that his son is in a dispute with the district involving a due-process hearing. “I see quality people on the (transition) team, but I also see this other group that I know have animosity toward the district,” said Calobe Jackson Jr., chairman of the Board of Control. “This right away raises a red flag to me. These people should not be on there. There are some that are very qualified. But I just don’t think it's the best team that could have been formed.”

“I believe all experiences were taken into account, and that’s why they were selected by [Thompson] to serve on the transition team,” said Abe Amoros, the mayor-elect’s spokesman.

The team is expected to complete its report by the end of the year, Amoros said.

THE TEAM

The education transition team is led by Audrey Utley, former superintendent of Middletown Area School District. In March 2008, Utley was named chairwoman of the Duquesne City School District’s Board of Control by the state Department of Education. On Thursday, Utley e-mailed to The Patriot-News a list of members of Mayor-elect Linda Thompson’s education transition team. Besides Utley, the members are:

Sieta Achampong, school administrator in Susquehanna Township School District.

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